In Bich Minh Nguyen’s “The Good Immigrant Student”, she takes us through her earliest memories in the American school system as she had to balance her new lifestyle and languages. She was often the minority in her classrooms, so she casted herself out in order to fit in with the “good boys and girls”. Going onto her later elementary school years, her classmates would make fun of her and tourture her based on their perceived knowledge of Vietnamese people. Her childhood was made up of shrugs and sighs because of this desire to disappear from her classmates. This attitude continued into high school, where she recounts not fitting into her rich, white peers with their fancy cars and their cliques. 

In paragraph 28 Nguyen states, “I would like to make a broad, accurate statement about immigrant children in schools. I would like to speak for them (us). I hesitate; I cannot”. Nguyen wants to send a message to her community of immigrants and foreigners as an attempt to categorize them. However, she realizes that she cannot make due on this classification because it ignores the efforts those immigrants have made to categorize themselves. Although they may have similar feelings and struggles, the way an individual reacts to a new environment can vary. Making a statement can neglect a person’s experience and stereotype them in a way they wouldn’t want to be. Nguyen knows she wouldn’t want to face the same neglect and assumption that she had to endure as a child.